Just Be Yourself
by bright snow
Summary: When the Chief suggested that Marisa be more social, she takes him seriously and sets off to find her inner socialbility that everyone is supposed to have. And Colm gets a bit of fun. Oneshot.


**Just be Yourself**

**A/N:** Yeah! Go Marisa, you rock:3 Not my favorite FE:SS character (Who is?), but I've decided to take pity on her as there aren't a lot of fics centered on her. Seven pages on Word. :)

I'm basing this on supports. Ish. So Marisa/Gerik support is at C-A, Marisa/Colm is at A, Marisa/Tana is at C/B. And no, I don't care for the support limit, so sue me. :P Not literally, of course. Eheh. But yes, it shall be a tad different than what the conversations are really like. It's to keep me from being restricted and you from being bored if you already know the dialogue. Thank you for reading!

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. :)

**--Gerik--**

_Huh. I think she took me too seriously again,_ the scar-faced mercenary sighed as he watched the Crimson Flash of his band of mercenaries walk away with a definite disgruntled hop in her step. _I just hope nothing too bad comes of this._

**--Colm--**

"_I'm boored!_" the thief exclaimed with exasperation to an innocent shrub that had happened to get in his path. He couldn't set his plan for stealing the embroidery on that high-and-mighty Rennac yet, he couldn't spar with anyone because he wasn't good enough, Neimi was off finding the mirror from her mother that had broken from the leather strap and he couldn't help her with it because Artur was and it would have been awkward for both of them to be doing it, and Kyle didn't want him to bother him unless he had any news that weren't 'useless tidbits.'

"There's absolutely _nothing_ to do!"

Then suddenly, a thought struck with the quickness of a lightening bolt. With that, Colm shot off to do what his mind willed.

**--Marisa--**

_"Maybe you should be more sociable!" the chief had advised when she asked why everyone seemed to be avoiding her. "You're probably scaring every away by being so quiet," he had added with a mocking smile._

"More sociable?" the fuchsia-haired Myrmidon wondered out loud to a sympathetic tree. "I suppose I'll just have to practice at it, just like how I got better with the sword by practicing," she mused. _Though I don't think I'll ever be quite as talkative as Princess Tana, _she thought grimly as she remembered how the Princess had chattered and chattered and _chattered_ about seemingly random and unrelated things. She didn't even care that it looked like Marisa wasn't paying attention; it seemed she just needed someone to bounce her words off of.

--

After several fourth-hearted efforts at conversation with a tree (Steering several weird looks her way from Joshua, Ross, Artur, Neimi, and others), she finally called a break and slumped down, back against the rough designs of the trunk behind her. She tilted her head back against the comforting presence, glaring up at the sky, the clouds, anything she could blame for her lack of socialbility.

"Hey! Marisa! What's up?"

The mercenary almost jumped out of her skin when the blue-haired thief swung out at her from the branches, his hair standing out weirdly with the pull of gravity.

"You will fall from that tree branch if you keep hanging from it," she predicted with a growl, irritated that he caught her at a moment when she wasn't feeling too happy about herself.

Taking the hint that he was about to be yanked down by a very annoyed sword-wielder, Colm quickly swung down, landing a bit awkwardly on his feet. "So! Whatcha doing?"

"Prac- uh nothing," Marisa said, seaming the syllable _prac _perfectly with the _uh_, inwardly glad that she had someone to talk to.

"Well, if you don't want to tell me, you don't have to. I already know what you were doing!"

"What-"

"You were talking to a _tree_, weren't you!" he declared. She could see that he could barely restrain the laughter from howling out and felt her face become awash with embarrassment.

"No, I was-"

"Doing what?" Marisa noticed that the thief continued to attempt to hold in snorts. Failing miserably, of course. But it's the thought that counts, right? Right?

"I- Okay, you got me there," she said, trying to keep her voice from wavering too much.

She watched as the teen sucked in a deep breath and then said, after she refused to elaborate any further, "Hey, it's okay. You can trust me. Overcome your mountain and all, you know? Is this some kind of training for that?"

"..."

"C'mon! Tell me!"

"...I don't want to."

He seemed a little taken aback at her abrupt end of the conversation and Marisa almost felt sorry for him. Keyword: **almost**. However, the young thief seemingly decided to prattle and chatter and altogether _rant_ about seemingly random things to fill the space. His thin voice was like a needle in her concentration, constantly jabbing and poking until she felt like her head was going to implode if he continued any longer.

"Colm..."

"..and then, you know, Neimi had to go and hoop her mirror through a-"

"**_Colm_**..."

"...leather strap and then it had to break because you know, it's just going to be like that. So now _Artur_-"

"**COLM**!"

The Myrmidon watched him blink as if he had just noticed her. "Yeah?"

"If you would shut _up_ for one minute..."

"Aaand...?"

Marisa felt an eye tick coming along hand in hand with her horrible headache. "I was...practicing..."

"...yes...?"

"...beingsociable."

"Wha?" It was obvious that the thief needed a second to piece it all together. Or two.

"Yes. Now, if you'd excuse me, I've-"

"...sociable...?" Marisa's mouth almost quirked into a pout at the fact that he managed to figure it out before she could make a daring escape but she managed to rein in the instinct... this time. "What do you mean... _sociable_?"

"Exactly what it sounds like."

"Wait- wait- let me guess- _Gerik_ told you to do it, right?"

The female Myrmidon had nothing to defend herself with. She could only nod as her friend probably pieced together some ludicrous reason why Marisa, the _scary_ one, would actually try to be _sociable_.

Surprisingly, he took it better than she thought he would. "Ah. Okay." The teen then found himself a piece of foliage to lean back against that was across from Marisa, a grin pasted on his face. "Okay. Oh, don't mind me," he said with a toothy grin after noticing her blank look for his reason of staying. "Just keep, you know, practicing being _social_."

After some consideration (Well, at least she'd be talking to someone who could talk back to her), Marisa sighed in defeat and straightened her bent over back and attempted a smile, the edges of her mouth creaking upwards in what she hoped passed as a friendly expression and not one of a lunatic. "Hello, Colm!" she uttered through the gritted teeth of her so-called smile. The mercenary almost cried when her friend visibly flinched away from her.

"No, no, no... that's... that's just scary, Marisa."

She nibbled a little on the inside of her right cheek with her back teeth, her face dissolving back into her usual gravely expression. "So what do you want me to do?"

He shrugged. "I dunno, make it look more natural or something..."

She almost rolled her eyes at this useless comment before trying again, this time not bothering to change her expression at all, which resulted in a dead sounding voice. "Hello Colm. Isn't today a nice day."

The thief almost rolled his eyes, she could tell, but he didn't for the sake of her ego. "No, Marisa. That's just weird." He relaxed his face into an easy smile. "Hey Marisa, how are you today? Nice weather today, huh?"

After some consideration of how he wanted her to respond, she answered (Still with her rock-hard expression), "Fine."

"Uh, okay... well, you see, the problem with you is because you just end the conversation so soon."

She cocked her head to one side, her expression one of confusion. "Conversation is a waste of time."

"If you keep thinking like that, you'll never become like Princess Tana..."

"It's not like I want to or anything."

He started to roll his eyes again, but caught himself in the act before completing it. "Oh yeah, sure you don't. I bet-" Marisa blinked as the thief's eyes seemed to bulge slightly in the most unsightly fashion. "I, uh, yeah... it was great, see you later," he muttered before flipping headfirst over a nearby piece of foliage.

The Crimson Flash blinked at the sudden disappearance of her friend before getting up, turning towards camp-

And coming face-to-face to Gerik.

"Hey, Marisa, mind if I ask you something?"

"...yes?"

"You haven't come for lunch... and, ah, some little birds have flocked to me singing that you were acting a little... odd."

"...odd." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yeah, odd. Talking to trees and such." He peered at her closely. "You aren't... sick, or anything, right?"

"...no. I'm practicing."

"...what?"

"Practicing. Being sociable, like you said."

She watched the Chief blink as if in surprise. "Well, since it's you and all, I'm going to assume that you're serious. If," he continued before Marisa could get another word in, "this is about what I said earlier, which I'm assuming it is, I wasn't really being serious, and so you shouldn't worry about it."

"But. I've gotten more social."

"Oh, really?" he asked, a slightly suppressed bemused expression leaching from his scarred face. "This, this I gotta see." After a couple more seconds passing without her saying anything, he blinked again and prompted that she 'go ahead.'

"Don't laugh."

The Chief laughed easily at her expression but quickly repressed his feelings of mirth at Marisa's grave stare. "No, I won't laugh. I promise," he added quickly for the sake of ridding her face of skepticism.

"Here goes... Hello Gerik!" her face and voice both filled with extreme brightness that would have blinded anyone that had looked directly at it, the fakeness of it just too much to bear. "Lovely day for a good battle, isn't it!" Of a sudden, the Chief seemed to have some sort of seizure, turning to look anywhere but her eyes, his mouth smothered by a hand. "...What's wrong? ...Why are you looking away?"

He barely managed to gasp out 'no reason' before full blown laughing his voice box out.

**--Gerik--**

"Marisaaa... c'mon, don't be like that," he pleaded down to the unforgiving tent flap that was closed tight.

"Chief, Marisa's not in the mood to talk to you right now," a female voice called out to him from inside the small structure. Not Marisa's awkward one, but a smooth one that all but dripped with sweetness. Not enough for suffocation, but still a little hard to bear when it was at its worse.

"Tethys? Please reason with her..."

"...I'm not talking to you." The emotion-less voice of Marisa grated out each word. He could almost see the energy from her glare manifesting upon him.

Tethys laughed lightly, various jewelry of hers' jangling merrily. "See Chief? Now we girls just need to talk a little, and then you can come back, okay?"

"...I'm not talking to you, either." The tent flap opened up, and Marisa emerged from the depths of the contraption, her height nearing that of his.

Gerik sat down with a sigh, but Marisa remained standing; the effect was of her figure towering over his. More awkward seconds passed with only the slightly annoyed chatter of Tethys explaining what had just happened to Ewan, her younger brother.

"..." Her slightly red and puffy eyes glowered down at him.

He sighed again. "I'm sorry, Marisa... I really didn't mean to laugh."

"..." She still glared, arms crossed defiantly across her chest. "I'm mad," she snapped at him.

"Forgive me. I truly, actually apologize...Still mad?"

"I'm still mad."

Another breathy sigh escaped from his lips. "Okay. I get it. I don't have that much gold on me, but if you'd like, I'll buy you a snack...?"

"You're the Chief. You don't need to apologize. Just give me orders."

"Well, I know that, but still. I wasn't sensitive to your feelings, so I owe you...Tell you what. I'll buy _anything_ you want."

"...you're too soft.."

He blinked. "Pardon?"

"Leaders are harsher than you," she explained, and Tethys' voice called over an agreement to what the Crimson Flash said.

"...well, I said too much, so I apologize. You're fine the way you are."

"...really?"

"Yeah."

She blinked a couple times before muttering something along the lines of _then I won't be mad anymore_, but it was so run together that he couldn't understand a third of what she was saying.

"What?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

"No, really, what-"

"Just forget it!"

"If it'd put you in a better mood, I don't have a problem with-" he started, but she stormed off before her could finish his train of thought. His face relaxed into an easy smile.

_No, Marisa... take me seriously. Just be yourself_.

_**End**_


End file.
